It’s a new year. 2017 successes await you if you start taking actions that align you with success. Start now. The first step to 2017 successes is to commit to taking action.

This means that you cannot stop at positive thinking, repeating positive affirmations or fantasizing about what it will feel like to reach your goals. Dr. Steve Maraboli said, “Don’t just sit and wait for magic to happen. The magic that turns dreams into reality is YOU. When you are inspired by a dream, create a good plan. Creating that plan turns your dream into a goal. Then, take action!”

Passion, plan and action create 2017 successes

Action is a must in this world. You can’t just think-think-think about what you want. Even a great magician has to actually reach inside a hat and pull the rabbit out. A rabbit doesn’t come out of a hat simply because a magician thinks about a rabbit coming out a hat.

It could be why Dr. Steve Maraboli goes on to say that, “Live your life in a way that will bring that dream, that goal, to life. The magic is you.”

To map out 2017 successes, review your 2016 accomplishments. Major corporations don’t do this during employee performance reviews for nothing.

Now let the past go and look ahead

After you review your 2016 successes and identify areas for improvement, focus on the 2017 successes you want to experience. Get out a sheet of paper or computer.

List the top three successes that you want to experience this year. You really need to be passionate about achieving these goals. It could take weeks or months of consistent action and thought to manifest a goal. Inner passion will fuel you forward.

Stick to three successes as doing so helps you to focus. For example, you might write that you want to visit your adult children three times this year, gaining their genuine invite. Other goals might be to lower your blood pressure 20 points and to increase your business profits by 12 percent.

Build on your 2017 successes

Beneath each goal, write out at least 10 specific actions that you will take to manifest these 2017 successes. For instance, to lower your blood pressure by 20 points, you might:

1. Stop sprinkling salt on food
2. Eat clean salads (not add salad dressing to vegetables)
3. Walk 1 hour a day
4. Drink 4 to 8 glasses of water a day
5. Meditate for 15 to 20 minutes a day
6. Write in a journal at least four days a week
7. Sleep 7 to 8 hours a night
8. Use a fitness watch and track your exercise and deep sleep
9. Take your blood pressure once a month to see if the actions you’re taking are working
10. Reduce or eliminate fried foods from your diet
11. Read at least one new article a month on blood pressure to discover new ways to lower your blood pressure
12. Spend time with family and friends each week (good social connections improve our overall health)
13. Every half hour, for 30 to 60 seconds, visualize my blood pressure readings being 20 points where they are now

Stay open to the Creator’s word

Stay open to hearing and obeying our Creator. Insight on what you need to do to achieve 2017 successes could surface to your conscious mind seemingly out-of-nowhere. Speak positive affirmations to yourself if you start to feel as if your efforts will never pay off. If you keep going, something will happen.

Actively visualize yourself doing what you want to do. But, also take actions — lots of it! If your desired 2017 successes align with your authentic passions, you’ll want to do the work. In fact, it may not feel like work. It may feel like what you love to do, what you were born to do!

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Congratulations on your 2016 successes! You’re getting ready to cross the finish line and head into a brand new year.

Newness is inspirational! Newness is powerful! It makes you feel hopeful, as you may be feeling with 2017 only days away. Yet, just because the year, a relationship, job or house is new doesn’t mean that you’re in for significant, rewarding change. Your personal 2016 successes point to what you’re set to achieve in 2017.

Because of this, before you sit down and map out your 2017 goals, review your personal 2016 successes. Look back at your personal successes in 2016 with honesty. You won’t benefit now or in the future if you lie to yourself.

What are your best 2016 successes?

Following are specific questions you can ask yourself as you take a look back at 2016. Don’t skim over the questions. Also, consider your long term personal goals when you think about the questions.

Did my happiness and peace expand during 2016? If I struggled with feeling stuck or stagnant during 2015, did I have fewer days or instances where I felt that way in 2016? Why?

Was I faithful to my own mind stillness and mind awakening exercises in 2016? After I wrote down that I would meditate for at least 15 minutes a day at the start of 2016, did I do that? Did I sit still for at least 10 minutes after morning and/or evening prayer? Why not (again, be honest with yourself)

My financial savings grew in 2016 (yes or no)? Also, how did my saving grow? For example, did my savings grow because I spent less. Did I build personal wealth because I switched my accounts to lower interest accounts or worked another job?

Or did my savings grow because I experienced more business growth. I generated more personal wealth because I invested in my IRA more or got a raise at work or a combination of these or another activity?

Other ways you got on track in 2016

Your health is a direct connect to your energy. What health related changes did you make to position yourself for greater 2016 successes? Can you say that your:

Health improved for me spiritually, mentally and physically (yes or no)? Why? Did I exercise more, lost 15 pounds, eat more raw vegetables, cut back on my sugar or salt intake and/or cut back on worrying?

I followed my dream and started my own business in 2016? This is one of my big 2016 successes, as I’ve wanted to operate a business since I was 15.

Thanks to partnering with the right marketing agencies and sales specialists, I grew my company’s bottom line by 31%, one of several 2016 successes? If you work for an employer, how did you help the area that you work in grow? (If you’re not interested in helping the business that you work for to grow, why are you staying at that organization?)

More areas that impacted your 2016 successes

It may take one to two hours to complete the review of your 2016 successes. Don’t rush yourself. As you continue your review, ask yourself the below questions.

Instead of giving myself dozens of reasons to stay at a job I know I don’t like and know that I don’t find fulfilling, one of my 2016 successes found me applying and interviewing for a new job. I applied for jobs in my passion field. I even worked an internship in my passion field to give myself enough experience to nail a permanent, full-time job in the field?

One of my 2016 successes saw me saying good-bye to a toxic, abusive relationship. I also enrolled in a course at a community college, joined a book club and started keeping in touch with family and friends at least once a week to replace the relationship with more positive connections with others (yes or no)?

I got the help that I needed for a challenge that I’ve been dealing with. I stopped lying to myself and gave myself a chance to heal, so that I can be happy?

The above questions are general, in nature, covering personal relationships, work, finances and spiritual, mental and physical health. Because there are many facets to the experiences that you have in this world, it’s smart to review each area of your 2016 successes.

If you conduct a review of your 2016 successes before you map out your 2017 goals and the steps that you will take to reach those goals, you can spot areas that you need to focus on. You may also see just what held you back in 2016. You can also spot your strengths.

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By 2020, nearly half of Americans may earn their income freelancing. Companies like Lyft and Uber are already having an impact on the contractor or freelancer population. Declining job security is also driving the move from traditional to freelance employment. An in-demand role within the contractor community is that of the freelance writer.

Full-time freelance writer expectations

Flexibility attracts many people to freelance writer jobs. So too does a love for creating stories. The thing is that many freelance writer jobs rely on research, stats and advertising or sales copy. It’s this that some journalists find challenging when making the shift from newspaper reporter to online freelance writer.

Writing for the web is different than writing for newspapers and magazines. Writing for mobile devices produces an even greater shift. Clearly, even if you’ve written for traditional medias, you’re in for change as you start to work as a full-time freelance writer. Below are steps you can take to ease the transition.

Steps to life as a full-time freelance writer

If you’re starting out as a freelance writer who’s never earned an income writing, the following steps could save you hours of mistakes and hundreds of dollars. To successfully transition into being a full-time freelance writer:

Decorate an at-home office space. Use this space solely for freelance writing. A desk, chair, computer, printer and telephone are key items to add to your work space. I’m a big fan of working at a desk that faces a great outdoor view. It’s also a good idea to have a back-up laptop just in case your main computer goes down.

Tell your family that you’ll be working from home. But, don’t just tell your relatives that you’re working from home. Set work days and work times and stick to them. Stay free of guilt when telling people “no” when they ask you to babysit, dog sit or run errands during your work hours.

Focus on your writing. If the television distracts you, turn it off. Save social media and email checking until your lunch break or at the end of your work day.

Build a freelance writer website. Data to add to your freelance writer website are your bio, writing samples, freelance writing projects you’ve completed and a list of clients you have written for.

Market your online writer portfolio. Social media sites, YouTube, Vimeo and online directories are places where you can market your online writer portfolio. Press releases are another way to let prospective clients know that you’re looking for business.

Set up freelance writer job alerts. Create job alerts for keywords like “freelance writer” “copywriter” and “marketing writer” at job boards. Popular job boards include Indeed, CareerBuilder and ZipRecruiter. LinkedIn is another excellent job board source.

More steps to becoming a full-time freelance writer

Create a LinkedIn profile. Speaking of LinkedIn, take the time to build a writing specific LinkedIn profile. Publish writing blog posts to this LinkedIn profile to market your freelance writer portfolio. Reach out to entrepreneurs. Let them know how you can help grow or deepen their customer base.

Search for freelance writer jobs every day. Journalism Jobs, Freelance Writing Gigs, MediaBistro and Craigslist are good places to find freelance writing jobs.
Build a writing clientele of at least 12. Market your work until you get at least 12 paying writing clients. Why? Clients will come and go. You’ll have some writing clients who’ll work with you for three, four, five years or longer. Other clients will only need your services for two, three or six months. Having at least 12 clients helps to keep your income flowing.

Negotiate competitive prices. Use your self-confidence to negotiate competitive freelancer rates. Earn competitive rates and you could earn $60,000 or more a year writing 40 to 50 hours a week.

Keep good records. Record how much time you spend on each project. This will help you to negotiate rate increases. It also helps you to determine which clients are the most profitable.

File and pay quarterly taxes. Pay quarterly Social Security, Medicare and income taxes. It’ll save you a financial headache at the beginning of the year.

Backup writing files. Keep a backup file of freelance writer work. A removable disk should work. Just plug the disk into your computer and download a copy of client articles, blog posts, press releases, infographics and other content that you create.

Other steps to become a full-time freelance writer include continuing to learn. For example, as a freelance writer, you could get Google and HubSpot SEO and content marketing certifications. Research new online marketing, advertising and writing for mobile app strategies, analytic tools and trends.

Would it be accurate to say that your passion as a new business owner forced you to fire sales into red hot gear? Remember when you destroyed every idea that you wouldn’t make it? You didn’t wait for marketers to find you.

How it all changed

You performed market research feverishly, logging hours at your local library or searching the internet for demographic details on your target audience. If you were releasing a new book, you stopped by every local bookstore within a 30 mile radius of where you lived. Pushing fear aside, you walked right up to the customer service desk clerk and asked, “What do I need to do to get my books in your store?”

Your fire sales up efforts paid off. You got your products in mainstream stores. Online sales were strong. Then, several months or maybe even a year or more passed and your sales declined. Despite your efforts, it seemed impossible that your products would sell as fast or in as much volume as they once did.

Forget that each product has a life cycle and, when sales drop off — even if you don’t completely give up — you’ll slow down. You’ll start to doubt yourself and your work. What happens next shouldn’t surprise you. That’s right. Your sales limp along and then completely give out. But, your talent and your ability to produce didn’t change. So, what changed?

Your passion changed. Your belief that you will succeed changed. That shift altered your marketing, advertising, word-of-mouth and lead generation efforts. Like a tsunami forcing its way across a small town, your dwindling passion and belief flattened your sales.

What now?

Fire sales without breaking the bank

Read these 10 easy steps. Take action on at least three of the steps to fire sales into red hot mode.

Ignite your passion. Like a relationship that’s gone stale, you once had so much passion for your products or services that you thought about them all the time. You allowed slow or no sales to dampen your passion. Get that passion back! Recall why you started your business. Without judging if you’ll generate a lot of sales or not, imagine the benefits that your products or services will bring to others. Remember in vivid detail how good it felt to speak with someone who benefited from what you created.

Get fresh with your market research. Discover changes in your target audience. Does a larger number of your target audience now use Instagram versus Twitter or Facebook? Has 15% or more of your target audience moved from single family homes into apartments? If so, create a list of apartment complexes near your business. Don’t just pass brochures and flyers out at these apartment complexes. Speak with managers at the apartment complexes. Share the benefits of your products or services. Ask if you can host a seminar or give out samples. Definitely, create a sign-up sheet and get contact information on each person who comes to the seminar or receives a free sample.

Get out of the store. Get outside and start talking with people. Build your brand on and offline. Introduce yourself and your business to newcomers, passersby and the curious. Hand out flyers, catalogs, brochures and leaflets to each person who you speak with.

Start taking more action

Create a video channel. YouTube and Vimeo are leading online video platforms. Schedule a new marketing video release at least once a week. Test the market. You may get your best results by releasing a new marketing video early on a Tuesday morning. Or you might grab your biggest successes by releasing a new marketing video on a Friday or Saturday evening. Stick to the schedule. Avoid going weeks without publishing a new marketing video.

Attend large public events. Cultural and community festivals attract 25,000 or more people. Choose festivals that align with your business. For example, if you sale custom designed hub caps, you’d be smart to attend auto shows.

Get on the telephone. That’s right – the telephone. Conduct three to four online radio interviews a week. You may become a regular on one of the shows. To fire sales, you could also host your own radio show. Tie the show in with your other marketing efforts. This means, that you’ll add the dial in numbers and URL for the radio show on your packaging, including shopping bags.

Build a talented team. Triple, quadruple and more your reach by building a talented team. Assign each team member a detailed function. For example, a team member could be responsible for video productions, while another team member handles finding and registering you to attend large public events. Another team member could handle website and packaging designs.

Try ads and learn from sincere feedback

Run ads. Select ads that yield significant reach and that fit within your budget over the long term. As a tip, magazine ads can easily cost $5,000 and up, depending on the size of the magazine’s readership. Price out ads that align with your business. Plan to run the ads consistently, issue after issue, for at least four to six months to get the most out of the ads. Why? People generally need to see an ad 20 or more times before they take action.

Value feedback. Face it! You’re going to get feedback on your products, services and overall business operations. Work on your self-esteem, if you must. But, don’t run from fire sales activities because you don’t want people to discover you and give you feedback. Make changes based on consistent feedback that you receive. Another thing to face! You’re going to have to sharpen, enhance and change your products or services to stay apace with local, regional, national and global changes. It’s that or go the way of the dinosaur. Choose the latter and you could feed your ego by telling people how big or great you once were.

Practice awareness. You can meditate, take long outdoor walks or jogs, bicycle or hike. The key is to spend time each day tuning into your real Self. It knows which way you should go. It knows what you should be focusing on or doing right now. It can help you to live a rich, balanced life that extends beyond business and sales.

More ways to fire sales

More fire sales actions include blogging. Don’t just use SEO driven keywords when you blog. Use words that stir up people’s emotions. People say that they are dead, but, you can still get traction with press releases, especially if you develop relationships with media contacts. Newsletters, email, coupons, paying for online social media marketing services, educational seminars, cross selling with other businesses, public speaking, mobile trucks that showcase your products or services and late night television ads are other ways to fire your sales.

Build an annual calendar and chart your fire your sales course early. Write down specific actions that you will take each day. Don’t be vague. For example, write down that you are going to schedule social media posts at Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, Instagram, LinkedIn, ScoopIt and MySpace once a month using tools like Buffer or HootSuite. Take at least one action a day.

I’ve seen the numbers of listeners at radio shows like Off The Shelf skyrocket after the radio show ran a press announcement for only two to three shows in a row.

Features in awesome press releases

Read these following important elements that are not only a part of awesome press releases but that can give your next releases a rock solid sales punch.

Must read headline. Add words that trigger emotion to your press release headlines. Buffer shares headline formulas. Smart Blogger, Freelance Writing Gigs and My Quick Idea are spots where you can get great words to use in headlines.

Focus on the advantages. Introduce readers to your products’ or services’ advantages right away. Share the name of your new products or services from the beginning. If you’re sending a press release to announce an event, give the name of the event, location and date and time immediately. Then, go right into the benefits that people will gain from using your products, services or by attending your event.

Expert backup. Awesome press releases include snippets of a testimonial or feature interviews from one to three industry experts. Thanks to social media, you can reach out to experts for testimonials and short, concise interviews directly from your computer. Don’t force people to rely on your word alone. Give them more proof that what you’re saying is accurate.

Inform and educate. List three to five major benefits about your event, product or service. Keep each item to five to six words, to force yourself to be as clear as possible. Use a paragraph of your awesome press releases to present this information. Write for industry insiders and novices.

Be honest. Elections prove how critical it is to be honest. Be honest about your pricing, service delivery turnaround, shipping costs, product guarantees and return policies. Set high goals that you and your team can consistently produce.

Be prepared. Prepare for consumer response. Staff up to handle customer orders and telephone calls. The last thing that you want is to send a press release that gets national exposure only to discover that you don’t have enough products on hand to meet customer demands.

Make your press releases better with these elements

Add amazing visuals. Forget stock images. Take pictures of your products yourself. Shoot for originality. To highlight your services, consider using professional models. Because they are your pictures, make the images work for you. Use the original pictures in videos, blogs, articles and on your website and social media pages. Definitely add the original pictures that you took yourself to your press releases. Top press release distribution services let you upload pictures when you’re submitting your news announcement.

Keywords. The right keywords are a must. Awesome press releases need to be found. Professional writers can help you write press announcements using targeted keywords.

Videos. Create a video so readers can see your products in action. Add a link to your video in your news announcement.

Contact information. Absolutely do not skip this step. You’d be surprised how many people do. Include your contact information at the bottom of your awesome press releases. Details to include with your contact information are: the name of your company, mailing address, website URL, phone number and a short one-paragraph summary of your business.

Decide on the right press release distribution service to pack the most sales punch. Distribution services that have an international or national reach could yield the best results. Also, keep regional and industry specific press release distribution services in mind. Key is to alert media experts to your latest products and new services regularly, at least once a month. Another important key is to choose distribution services that have realand valuable relationships with actual magazine and newspaper reporters, media writers and digital news professionals.

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Passion and desire are hard to refuse. They push you into action. If they point toward owning your own business, be bold yet cautiously smart. And expect to experience business readiness symptoms, internal signals that may be painful.

Signs that you may be an entrepreneur

I remember when I first started experiencing business readiness symptoms. Although I was working a full-time job for a major corporation, I felt stuck. It wasn’t that going after promotions, horizontal job expansion and creative, corporate work wasn’t on my radar.

It was that I was ready to move on. I was ready to start my own business.

But, as may be the case with you, I needed to build a pipeline of cash flow before I launched my business full-time. So, for two years, I operated my publishing company as a side job. That’s when the business readiness symptoms got worse.

This is what I learned. Although they are no fun, these symptoms are a part of the growth process. Do any of these business readiness symptoms sound familiar?

• Sleeplessness or the inability to stay asleep for longer than one to three hours at a time
• Irritability
• Desire to explore and learn new things
• Rising courage
• Sharpness to your dreams, especially dreams that offer tips on actions that you should be taking now
• Hopefulness that, at times, feels nagging
• Focus on a hobby, creative pursuit or work that you abandoned years ago (in order to get a “stable” job that would pay the bills)
• Dissatisfaction with just going with the flow or sticking to routine

Welcome to the club! You just might be at the cusp of a business launch. It’s an exciting, nutty time. As invigorating as it may feel, don’t jump too soon.

In fact, one of the best ways to reduce business readiness symptoms is to conduct the right due diligence. Set yourself up for business success. Following are ways that you can easily do that.

Don’t just operate any business, operate a successful business

Identify expenses clearly. Create a line item budget. Include product or service development, employee or contractor payroll expenses, marketing costs and all other expenses in the budget. Stick to the budget. If you don’t stick to the budget, you’re wasting your time to create it.
Conduct market research. If you don’t have experience with market research, outsource this project to an experienced professional. Market research helps you to find out if other companies have the same patents that you want. Other data that market research reveals include how large your product’s demographic is, how saturated the market is and where your target audience is located.
Create an advisory team. These don’t have to be people with degrees. Your advisory team does need to have business experience and experience with products or services you’re launching. At the beginning, you may meet with your team bi-monthly. Bounce ideas off your team. Accept feedback without defending your ideas, as this could save you money over the short and long term.

More steps to reduce business readiness symptoms

Develop cash flows. Pre-orders, investors and seed money are ways to develop beginning cash flows. But, don’t stop here. Also develop two to three ways to keep cash flows operating. For example, you might schedule the launch of a new product every 8 to 14 months. You might expand your service areas each quarter or bi-annually. Definitely, establish bill pay cycles and have vendors and customers stick to payment due dates.
Get clear about how much time you have to devote to running your own business. You could easily work 50 or more hours a week and even six to seven days a week during the first few years that your business operates.
Design backups and alternative methods to handle snags and delays. For example, you can develop shipping alternatives and establish relationships with employment agencies should you need additional staff quickly.

Build a strong future for your business

Create a project plan and timeline for when you will complete business launch actions. Similar to a budget, stick to the business launch project plan. Items to build into the plan include getting federal, state and local licenses. You also need to complete any necessary registrations and set up a quarterly tax payment schedule. Open a business bank account. Get business cards, brochures and other marketing tools. Build a website and social media accounts. These are just a few items to add to your business launch project plan.
Build a measurable marketing plan. Familiarize yourself with marketing technology like Google and Adobe analytics and content marketing scheduling tools like Buffer and Hootsuite. Hashtag managers and email marketing tools like Constant Contact and MailChimp are other marketing tools to consider.
Learn about marketing strategies and tools via resources like HubSpot, Search Engine Land and Google Support. Keep learning. Take certifications and set up email alerts to keep up with search engine algorithm and ranking changes.

Take care of yourself to reduce business readiness symptoms

From a personal standpoint, get enough exercise. This means, getting outside in natural light. Eat a healthy diet. Don’t stress and get plenty of sleep (but not too much).
Accept that you may make mistakes along the way. Be patient with yourself. Seek support when you need it. Hire people who have the skillset that can move your business forward. Also, hire people with strong ethics and morals. It may sound simple, but this one can save you big.

Stay positive, even during periods when you may start to doubt yourself or feel afraid. If you’ve got a serious case of business readiness symptoms, you just may be ready to leap! Just do it smartly!

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“Excuse me, Ms. Your slip is showing.” Have you ever heard this, turned and looked at your dress hem and wondered why you didn’t see or feel that two inches of your slip were hanging down below your dress before someone else pointed it out to you? Or maybe you went three hours at work, sitting in boardroom meetings, without knowing that you had a coffee stain on your shirt.

Focus on what matters

It’s easy to miss what you would love to notice if you’re not in the habit of glancing in mirrors, checking out your appearance. However, appearance isn’t the only time when you could be making mistakes or slipping up and not knowing it. Journalists and bloggers should know this best.

As a journalist or blogger, you can scan an article you wrote two or more times, and still miss grammatical and spelling errors. Get in the habit of finding errors in order to improve your work, and errors might start jumping out at you. Point is, self-acceptance, not self-depreciation and judgment, is a key to a successful self-examination.

This means appreciating and caring for yourself. Forget comparing yourself to others. They aren’t you. Be sincere as you perform self-examination. Mencius put it this way, ” There is no greater delight than to be conscious of sincerity on self-examination.”

Self examination is never ending

As you perform self-examination, also be patient with yourself. After all, you’re on a journey, one that truly never ends.

Think of what Rainer Maria Rilke shares in Letters to Young Poet, “Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue. Do not seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will find them gradually, without noticing it, and live along some distant day into the answer.”

The power of self-examination could reveal new insights, giving you clues about the next steps you should take. It can also let you finally see how powerful, resilient, loving and bright you really are. This leads to self-confidence, the very thing you need to succeed in art and business.

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